Irma L. Olguin Jr.

I am often asked how to get good freelancing projects and/or how to do well in an interview for a job you really want.  I am now ready to commit my answers to writing.

The Short Answer

Lie.  

In order to be impressive it’s important to stress how great you’ll be in all the situations you’ve never had experience with.  If you’re asked if you can work with such-and-such language or this-and-that platform, just say, “Yes”.  Then go home, and figure out how to do it.

If a (subjectively) smart person is asking what they should do in an interview to be impressive, I always tell them what I say, “My biggest asset, and the most valuable thing I bring to the table, is that I can learn how to do anything.” 

What’s Wrong With the Short Answer

Yeah, ok.  Lying is wrong.  I hear you.  But that’s actually not the problem with the short answer.  The problem is that it assumes that the person is able to learn how to do things they don’t know how to do.  That’s what the next part is about.  Keep reading.

The Much Longer Answer

First, the decision to hire is a scary moment for the person doing the hiring.  Not just because they, themselves, have superiors to answer to, and “finding the right person” is a costly process for nearly every business, but also because, “What if I’m wrong?” is a tough question for the hirer to face.  When hiring, you’re going out on a limb.  You’re hoping this person with the quasi-impressive resume and witty jokes is going to be able to do things you don’t have the time or knowledge to deal with yourself.  And what if they can’t?  Or what if they won’t?  Or, heaven help us,  what if they sounded great in the first two interviews and then fall off the wagon the first week on the job, start showing up drunk wearing the same clothes they had on before the weekend, and making passes at the gal that drops off the cleaned rugs.  And what is that smell?  Are those someone’s feet?  My God, he’s not wearing shoes.

You see where I’m going.  Hiring is scary.

Good managers hire people for their ability to learn and adapt.  They want smart people that get things done.  They’re looking for a person who can deal.  Period.

The problem, and this is becoming increasingly true as our use of technology becomes more pervasive, is that we can’t make accurate job descriptions anymore.  Like teachers, managers are aiming at a moving target.  Jobs are changing, companies are changing, money, itself, is changing.  

The good hiring managers know this, and they want to know if you can keep up.  Which means, when you are going in to “close the sale” in an interview, your biggest selling point isn’t the skills you’re coming in with.  Nay.  It’s the skills you are able to learn.  That’s what counts.

Second,  if you think of the person you know best, who is the best at his or her job, who is the sort of person that other people admire, who seems to get all the jobs and the praise that you want… that person spends spends most of his or her time learning to be the best, it’s not something that just happened.  Look around you.  These people work at it.  When they’re not saving the day, they’re learning how to save the day in the event that that day comes.  That’s hard work.

Finally, If you aren’t able to learn on-the-fly, by the seat of your pants, on your feet (and so on), then by all means do not follow my advice.   I repeat: under no circumstances should you follow my advice.  

So maybe the lesson, really, is this:  Be honest with yourself, and when you’re done with that (not before!), be honest with your interviewers.  

Disclaimer: This article is geared toward the "knowledge class",
or "knowledge workers". Other types of work have other rules that
I know nothing about.